Thursday, January 31, 2008

Kim Komando featured a site today that allow you to upload a photo of yourself, full face, and 'try on' hairdo's that different celebrities wear. I was in a mood to do something inane, so here I am even with a Brad Pitt cut!

Wednesday, January 30, 2008

(cartoon of White Rabbit as sung by the irreplacable Grace Slick and Jefferson Airplane. A must see!)

Passion

Libertango by Yo Yo Ma with clips from 'The Dance Lesson. This man's music stirs my blood. I heard him on a simulcast on the educational channel live at Carnegie Hall in the eighties and stood up alone in the room after screaming bravo! What can be more passionate than his music combined with the tango?? Wow!

Aging

Both Sides Now, with clips from the movie, Love Actually. I love this later version of this song.

I didn't get in the sensual sexual per se. Next time:-) Think Amy Winehouse's F**k me pumps vid, which I found thanks to Collin. Now, if they will accept the challenge, or have time to do it, I tag Lee Herrick, Ray Sweatman, Jim Knowles, and Iri ..don't ask me to bungle the spelling of her last name. It's Finnish and too complex for this early in the morning. Nomiker..Blue Skies Over A Redhead, a poet who posts most of her beautiful poems on MySpace.

Tuesday, January 29, 2008

Okay, I was going to do this in spaced out installments, but got carried away and picked more that represent attributes of my poems or myself as poet. Two up today. The last three up tomorrow.

Disillusionment

(Diamonds and Rust..Baez) I remember how moving this song was when I first heard it and it still gets to me until this day. One of the themes that runs through my poems is the falling in/falling out of love and the disillusionment that comes after more than one major love has passed by.

Intensity

(You're beautiful..James Blunt) When I first heard James Blunt sing, I had to buy his CD. The intensity of first times, be it love or anything else. It's a feeling we should never lose.

Monday, January 28, 2008

I'm going to take a shot at it on the installment plan. I originally found his link on Sam Rasnake's blog.

This is the essence of the challenge, but go to Nick's blog entry on Thursday, January 24 for the full skinny and his choices:

If you were to liken your poetry to a musical genre and match it in its intrinsic elements of poetry to a specific form of music, artist or even song(s) what might that (those) be? So let's say for the sake of comparison that if you were to choose 5 songs; pieces and/or artists which would best approximate your poetic sensibilities and style which would they be? If possible post them in You Tube form.

Saturday, January 26, 2008

Courtney Campbell, a talented poet living in Brazil, interviewed me for this issue and I interviewed John Sweet, a poet I much admire. Enjoy the issue! (my pic and bio are at the bottom of the interview with John)

EDIT: A new issue is out now at that link. Go to the drop down box on the opening image , hit down arrow, and choose 'all interview issue' to see the above. Thanks. I'm also in '2007 poetry' in the list.

Monday, January 21, 2008

I wrote this poem last year and may have posted it here before. I've honed it some since then and am reposting in honour of his day. I heard Martin Luther King give his I Have A Dream speech during the March On Washington. I was working that summer in Manhattan and rode down with members of a Black church in Brooklyn, where I worked, in a chartered bus that day. Make no mistake. King was a special leader. For that day, skin color was forgotten. We gathered around that long wading pool and believed in his dream. It's been a long time, but I hope it still will come true.

Martin Luther King: MIA

We're looking for you, Martin.We're searching Selma, back-row bus seats, crowded lunch counters,Dylan's guitar, Hoover's files,your I Have A Dream speech.We're combing back through days when protest and lovebeat in the same heart chamber;days when we thought blackwould meet whiteand white would meet black in a role reversal meltdown of ivory keys playedon a Sunday organ in churchespouring Christ's blood into silver chalicesfor whoSOEVER believed.

Show yourself, Martin.Do you sit, unseen, in laps of the homeless, the disenfranchised,beaten and raped women,molested children and sad,jobless men, telling them lovecan still rule the world and no hand will then ever be raised with whip,chain or fist to innocent backs?

We need you, Martin.Take up your staff. Strap on your sandals. Lead us from temptationand forward into a salvation of arms outreached in an endless ballet where princes remain faithful and trapped swans are set free by long journey's end.

Tuesday, January 08, 2008

Cocky, he thinks he can kill giants with his slingshot.He tamps powder deep into bombs, spews hate as his evening prayer, tells himself those who aren't like him are evil, laughs when the world mourns.

Friday, January 04, 2008

A friend (Al Winnans) just wrote about the high winds out in San Francisco just now and this note just poured out back to him....

On my boat trip, we anchored in Nantucket, planning to stay only 2-3 days and see things and move on. We had to go at a certain pace to beat winter down into warmer climes. (didn't succeed...we were still in the Carolinas at the beginning of November).

Anyway, the anchorage area was protected from all directions but one...wide open to the jetty leading west, back into the Vineyard. Fifty knot winds hit that last night. It was pitch black and ,one by one , under that black sky, we heard boats slipping ahead of us and dragging back tangling over other boat anchors and uprooting them. It was a mess. We started the engine...a little outboard to keep the heaviest pressure off our line and used it to weave to one side when we saw a big shadow floating back towards us...just praying it wouldn't get our line. That was one night when I asked myself if I was crazy doing this (one night of many, as it turned out:-).

The next morning it was bedlam. We were the leading line of boats. the others were jammed in behind us. A few found spots in the marina. The winds stayed up for seven more days. we ran out of ice and food but couldn't leave the boat. The chop was too high to row in so we beeped for the marina boat service...a big dinghy with a motor that picked you up for a buck for shore. I went in since R was better with the engine if it kicked out, took my backpack and came back with loads of food.

We tried to leave one morning when it seemed calmer. Were halfway out the narrow jetty when a big fishing boat flew by us and hailed us telling us it was still too dangerous out there for a boat our size and to turn back. As we started to turn , a coast guard boat went by really fast leaving a wave that rolled us from side to side. I was in the process of securing things inside but hadn't finished since this was a last minute go. Everything flew all over. The cat,terrified,lept onto my lap and dug her claws in. I soon felt something warm and knew she'd peed on me. Then I realized I was so scared that I'D PEED , TOO!! Gads.

We got back in, anchored, cleaned up the boat, cleaned up me and were finally able to leave the next day.

The two times remotely that scary were when a huge storm hit us in the Neuse river and when we had a long run down the Jersey Coast all night with the winds and seas so high behind us that we were surfing with just the storm jib up. It was whoosh, and up went the boat and then down the side of the wave. Get broadside to one there and you'd roll.

It's a wonder I survived. but those are the times I remember the most. Odd about how memories work, isn't it. It's not the mundane. It's the thrills, the chances we take.

This is R's back on Little Adventure before the stormy days. Look closely and you'll see Monster, my cat, inside, unaware of what was yet to come!

This was on the Neuse River, North Carolina. We were traveling temporarily with the other boat and both of us set out two anchors when we saw the storm approaching. The trees and shoreland in the distance kept the chop down, but both boats tugged ferociously on their anchor lines when the worst of the winds hit.

Feedjit

About Me

I didn't start out as a poet. I wanted to be a novelist. I also wanted to sail the Intracoastal Waterway through the Chesapeake Bay to the Vineyard one more time. On September 23, 1990, I woke up with a severe case of what was later to be diagnosed as ME/CFS (known by the demeaning name of Chronic Fatigue Syndrome).Finally, this year, 2011, the name was officially changed to M.E. Internationally. Hooray! As a former Clinical Psychologist, losing my old life was no fun! See the About Me page on my website to learn more about life before and during M.E.. Recently, exciting developments suggesting a retrovirus is involved in the etiology have been hitting the news.While the research wasn't replicated more than once, it meant that more researchers are delving into the problem. You'll find my poems in Chiron Review, The Dead Mule, Main Street Rag, PoetsArtist,Orange and Sardines, The Cliffs: Soundings, Wild Goose Review, In The Fray, Empowerment4Women, Remark Journal, Haiga Online, Moonset, Simply Haiku, to name a few.

Followers

Links

ALL POEMS/IMAGES ON THIS SITE ARE COPYRIGHTED
DO NOT COPY IN PART OR WHOLE WITHOUT MY DIRECT CONSENT.

*****SCROLL ALL OF THE WAY DOWN TO SEE ALL OF MY LINKS TO BLOGS I ENJOY!***

BOOK AND CHAPBOOK NEWS:

Shadows Trail Them Home, another collaboration with Scott Owens, was released by Clemson University Press in December, 2012.

Ron Moran, author of The Jane Poems and Waiting, and Professor Emeritus at Clemson, says of the book: "Shadows Trail Them Home is an excellent and compelling novel in poetry, an important contribution to the cultural canon of American life, presented in an engaging but disturbing context. It needs to be read by a wide audience, not only those who have faced abuses as children, as the two main characters have, but also by a reading public that treasures poetry that fuses superior writing with major social issues."
Reviews will be out in the near future. I only bought a few copies to sell personally so contact me quickly if you want one signed by me. You can also buy personally from me from paypal at the bellow link:

The Nature of Attraction, a collaboration with Scott Owens, is now available for seven dollars plus postage through Main Street Rag Press at
Main Street Rag Press. I have a few personal copies to sell which I'll sign and dedicate if you contact me or order through the following paypal link.

Prices with Postage

Lummox Press published Sea Trails, my first full length poetry book,in the fall of 2009. Sea Trails is available at Lummox Press. Click on the link for a paypal link. You'll also find samples from the book. Price is $15 plus postage. If you want a signed/dedicated copy, say so in the instruction box since I will mail those from the stock he leaves with me for that purpose

See Scott Owen's review in the Nov/Dec 2009 Wild Goose Review, reprinted also on his personal blog and is easier to access. (To see the Wild Goose review, hit reviews, then go to 'other links' on the review page that comes up and you'll be taken to a PDF page.)

Helen Losse, poetry editor of The Dead Mule, also posted a wonderful review of the book Blogcritics.org. Thank you, Helen and Scott for such great reviews!

The book is also available at Amazon but can't signed or dedicated there.

Also,Lummox Press published my latest chapbook, Hesitant Commitments, in 2008 as part of its Little Red Book series. Ordering information is at Lummox Press. Go to the book store, then to the Little Red Book series and you'll find my book on that list with a paypal link. Cost in the U.S. is $6 including mailing. Reviews of the book can be found by Emma Trellis and Cheryl Townsend at Goodreads.com (under the title) and archived to last year's Wild Goose Poetry Review. A review by Michael Parker recently also appeared in MiPo's Oranges and Sardines (print).

*****
Sixteen copies of my first book, Abrasions, published by Rank Stranger Press are left and in my hands! If you wish to pay by check, email me with 'Abrasions' in the header.

The following link will lead you to payment by paypal in a separate window. Cost: Eight dollars includes mailing in the U.S. Contact me for any additional mailing costs out of the U.S.

See my active blog list further down. It has a few more CFS/CFIDS links but won't take any more than on the list now. I also have a few links mixed in with my general links list. Bit by bit I'll organize.

Sitemeter

I'm trying out the below tracking meter beginning 12/14/2005. If it works well, I'll remove the one above. I'm trying to set it wiith the ending value to date of the one above, but am having some problems.